Scattered Black and Whites
by MySadCaptains
Summary: A collection of one shots in alphabetical order based on the brilliant Sherlock Holmes raising his not-so-brilliant daughter through childhood and the dreaded teenager years. A sequel to Every Bit The Little Girl (due to friendly threats that I'll be hurt if I ever stop writing it) but can be read alone if you want. Requests welcome! Rated T for bad words.
1. A

_**A Is For Aliens**_

It was rare that Sophia was allowed to sit in when a client came with a case. Sherlock would gesture to her when they came in, ask if they were comfortable with her being there. Mostly they said no. They didn't want to talk about their husband's suspected affairs or the suspicious death of their uncle in front of a child. Sophia didn't care though. If the case was good enough, she could easily sneak into the kitchen, hide in the corner and listen.

Although, if the cases were boring she didn't bother. Cheating spouses, runaway boyfriends or girlfriends, missed encounters, lost soulmates. Anything to do with romance had Sophia rolling her eyes and dragging herself back to her bedroom. Cases like that were far too boring. Romance was everywhere already. The TV, books, magazines, John and Mary and now she even began to suspect there was something going on between her father and Molly. She didn't need to force herself to suffer listening to even more romance in the form of her father's work. She'd much prefer to stay and listen to a good murder or crazy cause of death.

Today wasn't one of those days though. The clients, an older couple who looked to be in a constant state of disgust, insisted there was nothing about their case that was explicit or vulgar. Sophia could already tell it was going to be a boring case. Cases brought in by calm and rich older people were never really that interesting. The good ones came from people who entered the flat hysterical. Normal looking people who had taken long trains journeys to be there. Not posh people who entered calmly and made small talk about the weather.

So, Sherlock had told her to finish her homework which was equally just as boring. She was sat at the kitchen table, perfectly in her father's line of sight so that she couldn't slack off or sneak back to her bedroom to play. Ever since her teacher had told Sherlock that she was falling behind with her maths, he had started to be stricter than ever. Boringly strict on the most boring of all subjects. Maths, she insisted, didn't matter at all. Humanity had calculators now. There wasn't a point learning it all yourself.

Even after she had finished all of her homework she didn't risk leaving the table. She knew not to interrupt or distract her father whilst he was talking to clients. Even if it was the most boring case in the history of the world. Well, unless he asked her to make them tea or gave her _the sign._

If a client was particularly annoying or boring and Sherlock needed a reason for them to leave, he'd cough three times in a row. That was Sophia's queue. As soon as she heard the three loud coughs, she'd burst into the room with some excuse that would make everyone leave. Grandma's ill, an aunt she didn't have had gone into labour, the bathroom had flooded, she'd broken his favourite fictional vase, she'd been sick in the urn of a great grandparent she didn't have, the prime minister is on the phone or sometimes simply 'it's here'.

This time, though, it seemed that her father was content sitting through the most boring case of all time. There really wasn't even a mystery to it. Money was leaving their bank no matter how many times they changed accounts or cards. Expensive gifts would be brought that neither of the couple knew anything about. Diamond rings and expensive meals. One or two times, they told her father, was just bad luck, but this had been going on for years. Different cards, different banks. They were being targeted.

It was, in Sophia's opinion, boring and obvious that the husband who was doing it.

Once her homework was completed, Sophia sat at the table doodling on scraps of spare paper. She began to sketch out what she thought would be a great case. A murder, the Loch-Ness Monster, three knife wielding birds, an alien, a forest, an old lady in a cloak and a friendly bear.

"Mr Holmes?" The female client's voice said. It was the silence that followed the caught Sophia's attention. She looked up from her drawing, towards the living room where her father sat in his chair. "Are you quite alright?"

"Hmm. Yes. Fine." He muttered after a few moments. Sophia frowned as she watched him. He had been having these pauses, strange falters, for just over a day now. It had been getting worse though. A pause with a quick frown grew to a pause with a wince. The wincing grew to short grunts of pain as a hand rested on his stomach. Sophia knew something was wrong. She had told him to go to the doctor's office but he hadn't listened. He had told her she was being ridiculous and then continued with whatever he had been doing. "The husband." He muttered with a wave of his hand.

"Pardon?" The male client asked. His face drained of all colour and his eyes widened. Sophia didn't know why he was acting all shocked. What had he expected from their visit to 221B?

"You." She grumbled, gesturing lazily towards the man. "The money. _You've_ been stealing it. To... erm... to fund a second family in Spain. Tenerife to be precise. A few other young women across the globe. Your business trips to America aren't all business are they, Mr Havel? "

There was a silence. A calm before the storm. Sophia waited, looking up from her drawing. Lips pressed together in a tight, nervous line, her stomach flipped with anxiety. Would the woman start crying or screaming? Would the man deny it? Would he threaten her father?

"Darling." The husband soon spoke, his voice level and calm. The woman, acting equally as untroubled if not more, lifted her handbag up to her lap and unclasped it. Her slender hands dipped in and began to route around. "I can explain." Sherlock opened his eyes slowly, not looking at his clients or, in fact, anything in particular.

"Thank you for you help, Mr Holmes." The woman spoke. Her voice was so calm, it was frightening. She pulled something out of her bag and dropped it down onto the small table by John's seat before getting to her feet. "Have a nice day."

And with that she left. Her husband followed like a lost puppy, blurting out apologies and excuses as he left. A small smirk graced Sherlock's face as he sat slumped in his seat. His eyes closed again and for a moment Sophia didn't know if he had fallen asleep or was simply in his mind palace. She had that problem quite regularly. One day, she promised herself, she'd figure out the difference.

"Homework finished?" He asked. She jumped in shock slightly before glaring at her father's closed eyes.

"Mmm-hmmm." Sophia confirmed, finally moving. She pushed herself from the dining room table and walked into the living room. She peered at the coffee table, eager to find out what the woman had left. Crumpled up on the small table was a small pile of pound notes. Twenties and tens. "I think you should go to the doctors." She said, looking up from the money.

"No need." Sherlock replied.

"You're still getting tummy pains." She pointed out. "They look really bad."

"It'll pass." Sherlock muttered, pushing himself up in his seat, his eyes opening "I've most likely caught something from that God awful take out you ordered the other night." Sophia frowned. Accusing her was completely unfair. That had been _days_ ago and all she had done was, as usual, call the take-out place. She hadn't even wanted chips that day. She wanted chocolate.

"We ordered from the same place we always do." She argued. "You only had chips and it was _your_ idea to order take out." Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. Before Sophia could argue anymore, her anger being fueled by her father's dismissive attitude, his phone sprang into life.

Watching as Sherlock pulled his phone from his pocket and answer the call, Sophia dropped down in John's seat. Pulling her knees up to her chest, she began to try and plan a way to get in touch with John. He'd come and sort everything out. He'd come over and, being a doctor, would be able to sort her father out. Give him medicine and tuck him in with a blanket on the sofa. He might also tell Sherlock that he was an idiot which was always funny to watch.

"Sophia." Sherlock barked once he had hung up his phone. "Get changed into something warm. We're going on a case."

"You're not well enough for a case." Sophia protested. Sherlock rolled his eyes and pushed himself to his feet. He was about to tell her to be quiet. To stop talking back to him. He was the adult and she was the child. At least, he planned on saying something an adult would in that moment. It was obviously not going to work though. Not on Sophia and not coming from Sherlock. So he said to the two words he knew would get Sophia on board.

"Alien abduction."

/

It was hard to walk whilst wrapped up in layers of clothes and zipped up in a stupid pink snowsuit. Sophia had to make her waddle everywhere she went. Although, Lestrade had been quick to tell both of them that she shouldn't be there. It was too cold up at the top a high peak in a forest in the middle of winter. The snow was too deep and the winds too harsh. The crime scene, he had hissed, was far too gruesome for a child. Sherlock brushed him off. Telling him there was no one else to look after her. Mrs Hudson was visiting her sister, John and Mary were in work and so was Molly. Plus, Sophia didn't need to look at the dead bodies. Sherlock suggested that Lestrade got one of his men to look after her. Lestrade didn't like that idea. They were Scotland Yard, he fumed, not bloody babysitters. Sherlock said it didn't mind him if she saw the body and was traumatised. He said that Lestrade could just pay for the therapy.

It wasn't a member of Scotland Yard who ended up looking after Sophia but instead a local community support officer who had been tasked with the duty of handing out hot drinks. He was a young man with rosy cheeks and a round tummy. Sophia liked him. He seemed nice enough and let Sophia have a cup of tea with hot water poured out from a big thermos keg.

"Alien abduction?" Sophia huffed, clutching onto her warm paper cup. Flakes of snow clung to her mittens from where she had tried to make a snowman before being told by her father that a crime scene probably wasn't the right place. He had learnt that from John. Anything fun was considered 'not appropriate' around dead bodies.

"Um, hmmm." The community support officer, Harry replied eagerly. He told Sophia he had been named Harry after Prince Harry but, like Prince Harry, his real name was actually Henry. He had also told her that he wanted to be a police officer. A proper one. Maybe even the head of a unit one day.

"Four bodies. They found the tent a week ago but no one was inside. It was ripped from the inside out. They had ripped it open with their bare hands... because they saw some strange lights or heard strange noises, of course."

"Of course." Sophia nodded before taking a sip of her drink.

"They they find them this afternoon. _Miles_ away from their tent. Two of them were naked. In the snow! Why would they be naked in the snow, miles away from their tent?"

"A bear?" Sophia suggested.

"There would be marks on the body then. Claw marks. There would be sign of a struggle." Harry insisted. "Plus, there aren't any bears in Britain."

"Well... people are strange." Sophia grumbled. "It doesn't mean aliens."

"Then what about the strange lights in the sky or the girl who was in the tree? Inside of the tree! Wearing the two other peoples' clothes!" Harry continued. "Or the strange tan on all of them? Or the broken bones in one lad's legs? Or the missing tongues and missing pe-" The man caught himself, blushing and clearing his throat. Sophia didn't know what he was about to say but she wasn't too interested. It wouldn't be proof of alien abduction. It never was.

"How can it be an alien abduction if the bodies are still here?"

"Could have dropped 'em back off when they were done." Harry suggested with a shrug. "Time might work differently up there. They were gone for two weeks here but that could have been years in alien time."

"That's wasteful." Sophia muttered. "Why not use them up for their alien experiments or what ever? What not use them for compost or fueling their ships?

"Aliens might not be fond of recycling." Harry told her with a shrug.

"Anyway, aliens aren't interested in testing on us." Sophia argued. "They never test on us on Doctor Who. Plus, if they've got space ships and all that and they're more cleverer than us then why are they bothered with us. There are probably a million other planets full of aliens that would have a much better conversation with them. " Harry hummed in agreement before excusing himself to tend to a police officer that was beckoning him over. Not long after he had left, trudging through the snow, Sherlock was back at her side.

"It's not aliens." Sophia declared, watching as her father grabbed a plastic cup and filled it with cold water. His hands were shaking, the water in his cup sloshing around. "It's never aliens."

"Of course not." Sherlock grumbled. His spare hand gripped the edge of the table where the kegs of hot and cold water had been set up. His knuckles turned white whilst his other hand lifted a shaking cup of water to his lips. "Four bodies. Four friends. Missing for two weeks although their tent was found a week ago. Ripped from the inside. The bodies were found miles from the tent. Half of them naked and all with a strange deep brown tan. One with two broken legs. One was found in the hollow of a tree. Two of the friends had tongues missing. One of the men is missing a...well, that part doesn't matter. It's obvious, isn't it?" Sophia nodded although it wasn't at all obvious.

"Obviously..." She drawled. "It's a yeti... with super powers... he ripped them out of their tent and then... made them get naked and then... tanned them with his super laser beam eyes... ate the tongue..." Her father's pained but also annoyed look told her she was wrong. "Or a serial killer." Serial killer, she found, was usually a safe bet.

"No." He grunted. The cup dropped from his hand, falling into the snow at their feet. In a panic, Sophia reached forward and grabbed her father's hand. He let out a groan but pulled his hand back from her grip. "Hypothermia."

"Daddy, you're not well." Sophia panicked. She looked around, hoping to see Lestrade or someone she recognised. Someone who could come and help her but all she could see was a swarm of men in white overalls, police officers and other strangers.

"I'm fine." Sherlock dismissed, waving her away, although he clearly was not. "Hypothermia." He repeated, obviously changing the subject. "The friends celebrating a recent graduation, decided to go camping in the woods. No idea why anyone would want to camp in these conditions. It's freezing."

"Daddy, I don't care." Sophia whined. "Please, can you just go and sit down for five minutes."

"Two weeks ago, just before their parents filed a missing person's report when one of them didn't call home to say goodnight, there was a thunderstorm. Thunder that could easily be mistaken as the start of an avalanche, especially if you're intoxicated."

"You're the worst." Sophia snapped, taking him by the wrist and trying to pull him towards the trail the police had created that led towards a clearing where they had parked their cars. If she could just get him to sit down for a few minutes then he might feel better. They were only a few steps away when Sherlock managed to pull his wrist free. Leaning against a tree for support, he winced, pausing for only a second before launching back into his deductions.

"The tent's zipper was stuck for whatever reason. Cheap tent. Not too surprising." He continued, his voice growing more forced as he tried to work through the pain that was too obvious to hide. "They panic, rip their way out from the inside and run."

"Can't you tell me this when you're sitting down?"

"They run and run until they grow too tired. That's when the hypothermia sets in."

"Daddy. I'm going to get Lestrade." She turned to set off back towards the crime scene, ready to stomp dramatically through the snow. She had barely taken two steps when she felt Sherlock grabb her wrist. She felt a surge of anger towards him. No matter how ill he was, he was still too proud to ask for help. John had always said that they were both too stubborn for their own good. Neither of them would back down and a lot of the time small matters turned into shouting matches.

"Alcohol increases the... the risk of hypotherm-thermia. Paradoxical undressing." He grunted, gritting his teeth as his daughter rolled her eyes. "When... when the mind becomes confused... thinks it's too hot..."

"Uncle Lestrade." Sophia yelled, trying to yank her wrist free from her father's grip. With one quick tug, Sherlock pulled her towards him. Her back hit his chest. Before she could pull away, his free hand snaked over her mouth, muffling her shouts.

"I am fine." Sherlock hissed. "Stop being so dramatic and _listen_." Sophia tried to tell him that he was an idiot but the hand over her mouth didn't budge. "That's why they... took off their clothes. One climbs into a tree to... to try and stay warm. The tan was... the sun... bouncing off the snow. The tongue... the... erm... animals ate them. I'm fine."

Sophia was one moment away from giving up. If her father wanted to die on a mountain in the snow then fine. She would be very upset but it would be his own fault. On his grave stone would be the words 'Here Lies a Stubborn Idiot'. Maybe even a naughtier word. A swear word. One that John called Sherlock when he thought Sophia couldn't hear.

"Oh, Sherlock, there you are." Lestrade's voice came as the man made his way towards them through the trees. He looked them up and down for a few seconds, confused by the scene he had stumbled onto. "Been looking for you. You two alright?" It was then that it seemed Sherlock remembered what he was doing. His hand dropped from Sophia's mouth, letting her stomp a few feet away from him grumpily.

"Just playing a game." He muttered, attempting to straighten himself up despite the pain that stabbed into his side. To his surprise, Sophia didn't argue. Instead she glared up at her father, folding her arms across her chest. As soon as they were home, as soon as Sophia had a way of getting in touch with John or Molly, he was going to be in big trouble. They all worried too much.

"At a crime scene, Sherlock?" Lestrade questioned. "Look, whatever, do you have any ideas about this? It's getting late and if I hear one more thing about alien abduction I'm going to explode."

Sherlock nodded, his hazy mind suddenly remembering the concept of time. What time even was it? He hadn't fed Sophia since she had a snack when she returned from school. It was a miracle that she wasn't whining about it although it would explain why she was acting so dramatic and grumpy. The kid had the biggest appetite going and always got cranky when she was hungry. It was even worse when she was tired as well. There had been multiple occasions where he had seen his daughter completely break down after a long day at school and the prospect of a late tea.

"Sherlock?" Lestrade called, bring Sherlock back to his senses. "Are you alright, mate? You look a bit... grey."

"He's been like this since yesterday." Sophia piped up. "He's not well but he won't let me tell anyone." Sherlock opened his mouth to argue, to tell Lestrade that his daughter was just being a drama queen because she hadn't had her tea yet. He was a fine, a little stomach ache but nothing to worry about. He'd sort out the case and go home. People got stomach aches all of the time, or so he was told.

"Jesus, Sherlock." Lestrade scolded when nothing managed to come from the detective's mouth. "You should have told me. You're just going to get worse standing out in the cold."

"I'm..." Sherlock began angrily but his words dissolved on his tongue. He saw the faces of the detective inspector and his daughter grown even more concerned. His mind grew numb and cloudy and, for a breif second, he tried to shake it. "I'm..."

But everything went back .

/

As Sherlock's eyes fluttered open, he could just about make out a blurry, white ceiling above him with paneled fluorescent lights shining down harshly. His eyes closed once more as he tried to gather thoughts in his bleary mind. His first clear thought was the recognition that the stabbing pain in his lower abdomen has ceased. There was a dull, throbbing pain there but it was much more bearable than it had been. A sigh of relief escaped his dry lips.

"Are you awake?" A voice he instantly recognised as his daughter asked. Forcing his eyes open, Sherlock slowly looked around the room. His head felt heavy and ached when he moved. Sitting at the side of his bed with a brightly coloured kids magazine in her hand was Sophia. He remembered her in the forest. Her cheeks turning red in the cold. Placing the magazine down on her legs, she reached over to a bedside table and passed him a plastic cup full of cold water. For a moment, she watched him as he drank, silently. Sherlock watched her back, knowing that when she was silent, something was wrong. He tried to deduce her, his mind still groggy from sleep.

She wasn't upset. He could always tell when his daughter was upset even if she tried to hide it. She sucked in her bottom lip and her eyes glazed over with unshed tears.

There wasn't any worry or anger. She was completely calm. Not even a smile tugging at her lips. Sherlock's mind drew a blank. Rarely was she silent for no reason.

"Father." She whispered, her voice careful and delicate. When had she started calling him father? When had she started talking to him as if he was an emotional toddler. A small, pitying smile grew on her otherwise calm face. "It's been five years."

Sherlock's mind stopped working. It was his mind palace had stopped to buffer. Nothing came in and nothing came out. He stared back at his daughter in horror.

Five years.

"Don't torment him." Mary's voice laughed. Turning his head as carefully as he could, Sherlock watched as John and Mary entered the room. There was a heavy sigh from his daughter as the pair walked closer to Sherlock's bed.

"It's been a few hours." She admitted, hearing her father let out a breath her hadn't known he had been holding. "But you deserved a shock." She climbed from the chair to make room for John who took her place in the armchair. She climbed up onto the bed, next to her father and rested her head on his shoulder. Clearly her annoyance was beat out by her concern for her father. He didn't have it in him to scold her for tricking him. Her hand fell on top of his, her fingers weaving between his own and all his anger melted away.

"She's right, you know, Sherlock." John added. He was using his concerned but stern voice. Sherlock resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Why didn't you call us? You could have died."

"What happened?" He grumbled. He could feel his daughter's hair brushing against his cheeks. He felt himself wonder what had happened after he passed out. She was very dramatic at the best of times. He wondered if Lestrade had managed to calm her down or if he had panicked as she screamed about her father's death.

"Appendicitis." John answered. "The doctors said it was only a matter of minutes until it burst. You're lucky there were police cars hanging around. Lestrade managed to pile you into one and get you to the hospital."

"The case." Sherlock grumbled when he finally remembered why exactly they had been in a forest in the snow. He hadn't time to do his big reveal. He had passed out before he could, as John called it, 'show off' in front of everyone.

"I sorted that out." Sophia declared smugly, pushing herself up in the bed. Rolling back her shoulders and puffing out her chest, Sherlock had never seen his daughter look prouder. "The case is closed. It's been solved. I did my deductions and saved the day."

"You've been outshined, Sherlock." Mary teased from where she sat, perched at the end of the bed. She reached forward and poked at his legs teasingly. "You're not the only consulting detective anymore."

"What do you mean?" Sherlock asked. He was still too tired and too sore to have any sense of humour.

"Sophia solved the case." Mary smiled. "On the way to the hospital she debunked the whole 'alien abduction' theory. Whilst you were in surgery, Lestrade called the rest of his team and closed the case."

"Youngest person to ever solve a crime for Scotland Yard." John beamed proudly. "She's getting a medal, Sherlock."

" _And_ I got to press the button that makes the police car go 'weeee-ooooh, weee-oooh." Sophia grinned, bouncing slightly on the bed until John reached over to stop her.

"What?" Sherlock repeated, still not understanding exactly what was going on.

"I just told Uncle Lestrap what you told me." Sophia explained. "I told him about the hypothermia and the para-doctor-all undressing and the strange sun tan because of the snow and the animals eating the tongues and... other things."

"You took credit for my deductions?" Sherlock grumbled, more annoyed than he should have been.

"I wasn't going to." Sophia smiled. "But Uncle Lestrap said that you'd given me so much grief I should take the credit on this one."

"I didn't tell you why the male had two broken legs." Sherlock pointed out. "I didn't tell you about the strange lights in the sky or why the female was dressed in the other female's clothes."

"Oh, I had to do real deducing for that." Sophia replied. "I had to think long and hard about it whilst you were getting your appendix removed -by the way, you're not allowed to keep it, I asked. But anyway, I figured it all out.

"You get broken legs by falling, don't you. When I wanted to jump out of the window of the flat John said I'd break both of my legs if I landed on my feet. So that's what the man must have done. And there's nothing out in the forest to climb except trees. I thought he was just playing but Lestrade said he must have been climbing to see if he could see further because they were lost.

"The woman with all the clothes was obviously just trying to get warm. Just because the other had para-doc-trial undressing doesn't mean she did, right?

And the lights were super easy. You said there was a thunderstorm, that's why they thought it was an avalanche. Well, thunder comes with lightening. Maybe it was a strange lightning or maybe someone just saw it from a weird angle. I don't know, but Lestrade said I was very clever so case closed."

Something swelled up inside of Sherlock's chest. The small amount of jealousy dissolved and was replaced by a shimmer of, what John called, pride. He imagined telling Mrs Hudson and Molly. He'd have to call Mycroft but he couldn't really imagine his brother having too much of an emotional reaction to it. Maybe a forced 'well done' but not much more. The thought led him to his parents. He could only wonder how chuffed they would be when Sophia told them.

The next week he would find out. He would pretend to be annoyed when they insisted she wore the hat and have a photograph with Lestrade when he came to drop off the medal (a small un-official thing he had ordered online and had engraved with her name). The photo would be printed out and framed in the hallway. A framed copy was sent to Sherlock which he would later place on a bookshelf next to a painting of a man that Sophia didn't know. During her early teenage years the photograph would become a source of embarrassment. She'd beg him to take it down but he never did.

He could never see what she was so embarrassed of. It wasn't a bad photograph. She looked so happy and proud. Grinning and showing off a gap where one of her teeth had fallen out the day before. She wore an obnoxiously bright, hot-pink corduroy dungarees with a small panda stitched into the chest. Molly had chosen that outfit down to the fluffy pink sweater underneath. Lestrade had been crouched next to her, arm around her as she proudly showed off her medal to the camera.

In fact, Sherlock liked the picture so much, he didn't even mind the stupid deer stalker perched on top of her dark hair.

 _ **A Is For Aliens (and Appendix)**_

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _Well, I hope some of you guys are still reading. I hope there are new people reading as well! Before I start begging for review (oh god, please review, It's the only thing that makes me happy anymore), let's get some stuff out of the way_

 _As you can already tell, Mary is fine in this story! I started writing Every Bit before season 4 (or did I start before season three?) so so far, nothing's happened from season 4. I was thinking of keeping to it but, you know what, I'm the God of this world and I love Mary so she stays. Also, baby Watson isn't here. I don't hate her, please don't get me wrong, but I'm not ready for a baby just yet. I don't think it's the right time in our relationship._

 _Also, Eurus. I love Eurus. I love her and I just want to eat her up and smush her face against Moriarty's (anyone else? if you know any good fanfictions of that hit me the heck up please) so I'll probably add her to this story at some point._

 _Anything else you want to see, please tell me. Even if it's ridiculous or mundane as heck. I'll try my best to do it! You want to see Sophia bring a boyfriend home? I'll try that. You want Sophia to bring a girlfriend home? I'm on it. You want Sherlock to overthrow the royal family and sit on the throne in all his sheeted glory? That's why the good lord gave us dream scenes._

 _ANYWAY, my point is, you're all welcome to make suggestions and requests. I try my hardest to reply to each and every one of you lovely people!_

 _You're all great._

 _Please review!_


	2. B

_**B Is For Boys**_

The years crawling up to Sophia's 13th birthday had been filled with horror stories. Mainly they were told by John and Mary and all of them were focused on Sophia's teenage years. Puberty. They had told him that she would change, almost overnight, like a monster from a fairy tale. He could kiss goodbye to her being in awe of everything he did. She'd be embarrassed by him. She wouldn't even talk to him, only groan and grunt in response. She'd always be angry or crying and there would be nothing he could do about it. She would hate him.

Of course, he assumed that they were only trying to wind him up. His Sophia wouldn't be that bad. She would never hate him or lie to him. She would never spend days on end being miserable or grumpy. And there was no way on Earth that she would ever stop talking. It was all scary stories. The type that children told each other at sleepovers. Complete fiction and nothing more.

But there was one thing that did scare him.

Dating.

Boys, to be more precise. Because he had met boys. He didn't understand them but he knew what they wanted. He had seen enough television, heard enough teenage boys talking to each other on the tube, read enough books to know that many young men just wanted to get girls into bed with them and nothing more. He wouldn't let that happen to his daughter. Not Sophia who was already so fragile and emotional.

He tried to tell himself that, perhaps his daughter would turn out like him with no attraction to the opposite sex until she was much older. Or, if he was lucky, she'd never find another person attractive in the whole of her life and Sherlock would be able to sleep easy knowing that he'd always be able to protect her.

Because that was his biggest worry. He could protect her from anything else but a teenage boy who could break her heart. A boy who could make her feel like she was anything less than the most important person on the planet.

Of course, if Sherlock knew anything about human emotions and relationships, he would know that there was nothing he could do to stop any of that. Nothing legal or anything wouldn't traumatise Sophia for the rest of her adult life anyway. It was only when she was 14 that he found that out. Unfortunately for him, he would have to learn from experience.

/

She should have never agreed to this. It was too loud and full of people she didn't care to be around. People who kept bumping into her clumsily. People who laughed too loudly about things that weren't funny. People who were all the same age or slightly older than Sophia. She didn't know many of them though. Once or twice she saw someone she recognised as someone who knew Madison but none of them bothered to talk to her. Madison herself had long since slipped out of Sophia's view. She was somewhere in the house with someone else. So much for sticking together all night.

Standing alone in the hallway of a house she had never been to before, Sophia was starting to get rather annoyed with Madison. She wasn't a very good friend. Sophia should have realised it earlier but she was almost starstruck. It was because Madison was popular, cool and pretty. It didn't matter what she did or said as long as she was giving her attention, the right kind of attention, Sophia didn't really mind at all. She did exactly what Madison wanted her to do because she thought it would make her popular as well.

Even if she knew she shouldn't do it.

Even if it was lying to her father.

The thought made her stomach flip and her chest ache. She had never lied to her father before. She hadn't even tried. There had never been a point. She knew for a fact that he would be able to tell she was lying just by looking at him. Part of her was sorely disappointed when he didn't even look up from his armchair when she told her first lie. The lie that led her to be standing in the hallway of a house that belonged to a person she didn't even know. The air thick with cigarette smoke and cheap body spray.

"Sophie, right?" A voice asked, pulling Sophia out of her thoughts. She looked up to see a boy standing over her. She recognised him from school. He was in the year above her but a lot of the girls in her class spoke about him a lot. He had floppy blond hair that was never greasy like many other boys in school. His eyes were shiny and forest green. His skin was perfect with no spots and his nose turned up slightly at the tip. Everyone said he was the cutest boy in school. If Sophia took the time to think about it, she would probably agree with them.

But why was he talking to Sophia? She tried to correct him, to tell him her name was Sophia not Sophie, but he didn't seem to listen. He spoke again. His breath smelt like beer. Sophia had never liked beer. Her father let her try alcohol at home a few times. It was some parenting technique he had read about. He thought that if he didn't make a big deal out of alcohol then she wouldn't sneak out and drink it. She had never planned to. She didn't like alcohol that much. She didn't want to get drunk. Not yet. Standing in the hallway, her plastic cup was only filled with cola. Madison had tried to make her drink some horrid sweet alcohol that came in a plastic bottle and then called her lame when she said no.

The boy was still talking. His hand grazed against her bare shoulder. She didn't feel anything. Not a bolt of electricity or a shiver like in the stories. His thumb began to rub circles on her skin. She didn't know whether she liked it or not. She looked down at his hand, bigger than hers, and then back to his face. He was leaning forwards, making her feel smaller than she remembered being before. He was saying something she couldn't quite hear over the roaring of the music. It wasn't the type of music that she liked. It pounded in her head, making it throb.

So when the boy asked if they should go somewhere quieter, the idea seemed brilliant. She nodded, worried her voice would shake and sound pathetic if she tried to speak. He took her by the hand, the same hand that had been on her shoulder, leading her upstairs like she was a child. She should have pulled her hand away from his but for a moment she was struck by it. It was warm and soft. No one ever held her hand. Boys and girls held hands around school but not her. She had never thought about it until now. She kind of liked it. She didn't love it but it wasn't awful. His hand was bigger than hers, more tanned as well. No one in school spoke about how pretty his hands were.

She was so busy focusing on his hands that she didn't realise that he was leading her to an empty bedroom.

/

"Who's house is she sleeping over at anyway?" Mary smiled one evening as she handed Sherlock his mug of tea. Seeing as Sophia was out for the night, John had invited him over for dinner. It was better than him moping around the flat on his own, John had reasoned.

"Some girl from school." Sherlock shrugged, he didn't really take much notice of Sophia's friends. She never really invited them over so he never really got the chance to meet them. There weren't that many either. Not until lately. For the past few weeks she hadn't been able to stop talking about her cool new friends in school. Sherlock hadn't taken much notice of it and could barely remember their names. School friends, he had concluded a long time ago, never really mattered or stuck around. Sophia had only managed to keep one friend from primary school but, seeing as she went to the grammar school across town, they only spoke online and rarely saw each other in real life. Of course, that friend was Tabitha. The little girl with the dads who still thought John and Sherlock were a couple despite meeting Mary a good few times.

"Well that's nice." Mary answered happily, dropping down onto the sofa next to her husband. "She doesn't really go friends' houses often, does she?"

"She's too introverted." Sherlock answered. "Most of her friends are online."

"Still, it's nice she's doing some proper teenage girl stuff, isn't it?" John declared. Sherlock let out a hum of acknowledgement but neither agreed nor disagreed. He liked his daughter being who she was. He preferred when she stayed in the flat in her pyjamas reading books or clicking away at her laptop silently. At least then he would know she was safe.

"They're probably painting each others nails and talking about _boys_." Mary teased. Sherlock rolled his eyes, happy for the distraction that came with his phone buzzing to life in his pocket. Mary and John continued to talk in the background of Sherlock's attention as he reached for his phone.

The message was from Sophia.

 _Ravenstone Road._

 _SH_

Sherlock felt his stomach drop. The message wouldn't have made much sense if it weren't for the signing of it. Something that Sophia had always made fun of her father for doing. Something that John had joked that, if she ever used it, there must be something wrong. A joke that ended up becoming quite useful. It was soon agreed upon that if Sophia ever needed help she could sign her text with her initials and Sherlock or John or Mary or whoever had received the text, would know that it was an emergency. They would come running.

"Call Lestrade." Sherlock announced, leaping to his feet. He rushed out of the room, with John and Mary completely confused at his heel. He grabbed his coat from the hanger near the door and struggled to put it on as quickly as he would have liked. "Sophia's in trouble."

/

"Police have already been down to Ravenstone Road tonight." Lestrade explained over the phone that had been set to speaker phone. His voice filled Mary's car as the passengers sat in a tense silence. The drive was taking too long. At least in Sherlock's opinion it was. Even following the police cars that raced down the road with sirens blazing, it was taking too long. "Noise complaint. Seems like there might be a party going on."

"She won't be at a party." Sherlock snapped. "She's sleeping over at a friends house."

"Oh, Sherlock, you're not that dim." Mary smirked from the driver's seat. There was a pause and, after a quick glance in the rearview mirror to look at the detective in the back, she realised she was wrong. "Oh, wow. You are."

"Your point, Mary?" Sherlock hissed.

"It's the oldest trick in the book." Mary continued. "You tell your parents you're sleeping at a friends house and that friend tells their parents they're sleeping at your house." Hearing nothing in return, Mary rolled her eyes. "Then you both go to a party that your parents would no way in hell let you go to."

"No." Sherlock almost yelped. "No. There's no way she would have done that."

"Look, we'll knock on the door, tell them there's been another complaint about the noise and get them to wrap the party up. They'll soon start to scatter once we say we're taking some people in for underage drinking." There was a pause on the phone for a second or so before Lestrade spoke again. "Do you want me to... erm... bring Sophia down to the cells. Give her a bit of a scare for a few hours."

"No." Sherlock barked. "No. She won't _be_ there. She doesn't like parties. Last party she went to had slices of cake and a bouncy castle."

"Goes against the rules of the safety words." John piped up. ignoring his friend in the back seat. "We can't make a fuss. Whatever's wrong or whatever's Sophia's done. We can't make a fuss."

The police cars suddenly slammed on the brakes, pulling up outside a house that obviously had some sort of get together going on. Even from inside the car, Sherlock could hear the muffled sound of bass music pounding in the air. Whilst most of the lights in the other houses on the street were dimmed or switched off for the night, the house they had pulled up outside was bursting with brightness. The front door was open with a couple of gangly teenagers smoking and drinking.

Sherlock Holmes had never been to a house party before but he had no doubt that this is what one looked like.

"You lot wait in the car. I'll have a run through and see if she's in there." Lestrade's voice crackled from the phone before a bleep signalling the end of the call rang out. The trio watched as the doors to the police cars opened and uniform officers climbed out and headed towards the door. Lestrade headed out of one, giving a quick nod to the group before entering the house.

"She won't be in there." Sherlock insisted after a few moments of quiet. "She doesn't like... social gatherings."

"Teenager girls are confusing things, Sherlock." Mary reminded him. "They're a mystery to everyone. Even you." Sherlock scoffed. He didn't like the idea of his own daughter being a puzzle was infuriating. He didn't need that in his life. He didn't want it. Mysteries were for work. They were cases to be solved. They shouldn't be in his family life.

They waited for a while longer, watching as teenagers scattered out of the house and ran in different directions down the street.

There was a ping from Mary's phone. She reached into her pocket to pull it out for slower than Sherlock would have liked. Everyone was being too slow for his liking this evening. Ever since Sophia had texted him he wanted everything to be as fast as possible.

"It's Lestrade." Mary announced calmly.

"Why has he text you and not me?" Sherlock asked, feeling slightly annoyed.

"Probably because he knew whatever he said, _you_ wouldn't listen." Mary muttered as he pressed a few buttons to open the text. Sherlock didn't argue, knowing that Mary was probably right. "Right. Lestrade says to head home. He has Sophia and he's going to bring her back."

"No." Sherlock barked although Mary had already started the engine. "No. I'm going to get her." But Mary had already locked the doors and, as Sherlock reached down to unbuckle his seatbelt, John had reached backward from the passenger seat to grab his wrist.

"Sherlock. You know the rules." He argued. "If you go stomping in there and making a scene, Sophia won't trust you enough to tell you anything ever again. You're just going to have to do as you're told. Just for once in your life."

Much to John's surprise, Sherlock did do as he was told. He sulked, throwing himself back in his seat and folding his arms over his chest, but he didn't try to get out of the car again. Instead, he stayed silent all the way back to Baker Street.

When they did get back to the flat, Sherlock stormed into the living room and made a beeline for his violin. Mary decided to pop the kettle on. Even if the rule was not to make a fuss, she couldn't see Sophia going to bed without a lecture at the least. It would be best, she reasoned, for her and her husband to stay for a bit and make sure the detective didn't overreact or go a bit too extreme with the punishments.

"Sherlock, stop brooding." John sighed from his armchair as the detective began to play a rather miserable tune.

"She was at a party." Sherlock huffed, still pulling the bow across the violin's strings. "I know what things happen at teenage parties."

"You've read scaremongering reports in the newspapers of teen sex games and class A drug parties." John told. "None of that stuff ever happens. Sophia most likely just wanted to go to a grown-up party and feel like an adult for a bit. Every teenager does it. It's almost a rite of passage."

"She lied to me." Sherlock muttered, pretending that he was paying far more attention to the instrument. "I trusted her. Anything could have happened." Before John could argue, the three adults in the flat had their attention taken by the sound of footsteps pounding up the stairs. Sherlock's hand stopped, the bow hovering over the violin.

The door was thrown open, banging against the wall behind it. There was a blur of color that darted into the kitchen and down the hallway. Before any of the three could fully comprehend what was happening or figure out what to say, the door to Sophia's room slammed shut.

"She's fine." Lestrade declared as he walked into the flat. "Bit upset but fine."

"See." Mary chided, bringing in a tray full of tea and setting it down on the coffee table. Lestrade let out a heavy sigh and dropped down on the sofa, picking up one of the mismatched mugs. Whatever had happened during the ride back, it had tired the man out. He reached over to the pot of sugar and began to pile spoonful after spoonful into the mug.

"What happened?" Sherlock asked through gritted teeth, finally becoming inpatient. Lestrade shook his head ever so slightly before taking in a deep breath.

"She didn't do anything... wrong." He started carefully. "She's not intoxicated. Don't even think she drank anything. Not half as bad as some of those kids in there. Christ."

"So why did she send the safe word?" John asked before Sherlock could speak. "What's gotten her so upset?" Lestrade struggled for a second. From the look in his eye, Sherlock was dreading what he was about to say. A million awful situations ran through his head. Each one worse than the one before.

"No idea." Lestrade sighed. Sherlock's head snapped around to look at him, eyes wide and fierce. Worried that his head was about to be bitten off, Lestrade raised his free hand in surrender. "She wouldn't talk to me."

"For God's sake.." Sherlock cursed, placing his violin down on the table and making his way to cross the living room. Lestrade jumped to his feet, his tea splashing to the floor before he steadied himself.

"I wouldn't, mate." He warned, blocking the detective's path. "It seemed like a delicate subject. One that maybe Mary should deal with. At least for now."

"What do you mean?" Sherlock hissed. Worried that the detective was about to bite his head off, Lestrade began to frantically search for a way to explain himself as delicately as possible. He took a deep breath and looked down at his tea splattered feet.

"When I found her she was in a bedroom..." Lestrade started. Sherlock stared back at him blankly, obviously not seeing where this was going. "With a boy." The detective let out a string of profanity, his voice filling the room. Almost instantly, he seemed far less keen to leave the living room. Instead, running a hand through his hair, he turned to make his way back to his violin. "They weren't _doing_ anything." Lestrade assured him. "Didn't look like anything had happened. I don't know. I'm just thinking maybe a woman would be better talking to her first."

The detective opened his mouth to argue. To tell Lestrade that he and his daughter could talk about anything. That there was no need for a woman to get involved, he could handle it himself and he was rather offended that anyone thought otherwise. But after fumbling a few times to make any sound escape his lips, he gave up. Then, with a sigh, he picked back up his violin.

/

"It shouldn't be taking them this long." Sherlock hissed as he paced the living room much like a tiger in a small cage. Anger was radiating off of him. Anger that had developed from panic and worry that grew with every second that Mary and Sophia stayed in her bedroom. Every few moments John and Sherlock would hear sobs leaking through the walls. That just made Sherlock grow more tense, his hands curling into fists at his side.

"Look, I'm sure everything's fine." John tried to reassure him. "If there was any emergency Mary would have told us by now." Sherlock spun around on his heel, glaring dagger at his friend who was sitting oh-so-casually in his armchair. It had been bad enough when Lestrade had left, telling them to call him if they needed him. They needed him there. They needed him to wait. As soon as Sophia had told them what his boy had done, they needed to track him down and kill him. John had told him to calm down and stop over-reacting. They weren't about to kill a teenage boy and Lestrade should be allowed to go home and get some rest.

Sherlock was furious that everyone was acting so relaxed about the situation.

"She's OK." Mary declared before she had even entered the detective perked up, his glare falling from John as his eyes darted towards the door. "She's fine. She's not hurt, just a bit upset."

"What happened?" Sherlock asked, trying to keep his voice as level and calm as possible to avoid being scolded for being 'overdramatic'. Mary and John swapped a look, as if they could communicate without words. Then, after a moment of tense silence, Mary spoke, gesturing to Sherlock's arm chair as she did so.

"It's not nearly as bad as you're expecting." Mary started gently as Sherlock plonked himself down in his seat. She sat herself down on the arm of John's armchair, not breaking eye contact with the detective. "It seems like a boy got a bit too... hands-on with her. She's not physically hurt. She wasn't... she wasn't raped." Sherlock flinched at the word. "She's just shook up is all. Most of all, I think she's worried about being told off. So I really do think it'd be better if you don't make a big fuss of it all tonight. You know, be a bit more sympathetic than furious, eh?"

"What was she doing at that damn party?" Sherlock growled.

"She said it was her friend's idea." Mary replied calmly. "Sophia thought they'd stick together but it seemed as soon as they got to the party her friend just left her on her own. A boy from school recognised her and got talking to her. He had a bit too much to drink and obviously thought tonight would be his lucky night. Seemed that the little sod didn't want to take no for an answer either."

"What's his name?" Sherlock asked.

"I don't know." Mary replied, confused for a second before realisation dawned upon her. "No way, Sherlock. You can't get involved."

"Somebody sexually assaulted my daughter." Sherlock stated, sounding oddly calm.

"Sophia doesn't think it's worth reporting anything to the police." Mary told him although she knew that wasn't what Sherlock was thinking. Plus, even if Sophia did want to go to the police, Mary doubted they would do much about it. They'd say something about it being a minor assault, not having any proof or something along those lines. Even if by some miracle the police decided to do something about it, it wouldn't be much more of a slap on the wrist for the boy.

"I don't want to go to the police." Sherlock shot back. "I just his name and my laptop. I'll be able to find out his address within five minutes."

"Bloody hell, Sherlock, you can't go and kill the boy." Mary snapped. She turned to her husband who up until now had been silent. "John, try and talk some sense into him, will you."

"You know, whilst I don't condone murder, I do have to side with Sherlock here." John sighed much to Mary's surprise. She let out a few curse words under her breath and ran a tired hand over her face. "Whoever the little bastard is, I wouldn't mind teaching him a lesson."

"Well... a lesson... sure." Mary fumbled. "But you can't go all vigilante. You can't go round to his house and beat him up."

"We won't beat him up..." John started only to be interrupted by his wife.

"Look, why don't we just take this one step at a time." She tried, looking from John to Sherlock. "Let's focus on making sure Sophia's alright and getting a good night's sleep, OK? If you two still feel like doing something stupid then we can talk about it properly tomorrow." Sherlock didn't argue despite desperately wanting to make it clear that killing someone who assaulted his daughter was anything but stupid. "Come on John. It's time we got home."

"You're leaving?" Sherlock asked. He hadn't thought of that possibility. He had assumed that John and Mary would stay the night, at least. Maybe the week. He couldn't possibly be left alone with Sophia whilst she was in such a state. This was all at least a two man job. Sherlock Holmes, no matter how fantastic he was, wasn't fully equipped for this.

"It's late, Sherlock." Mary stated, getting to her feet with John following. "Some of us have jobs to get to tomorrow." As the Watsons made their way to the door, Sherlock leaped to his feet to follow. His eyes were wide and full of panic as he watched the pair grab their coats from the coat hangers.

"You'll be fine, mate." John said, clapping a hand down on his friend's back after he had slipped an arm through his coat's sleeve. Sherlock stared back at him, wondering how on Earth he could say that. He knew that human emotions were definitely not his strong point. How could they be willing to leave his fragile daughter in his hands? What if he said the wrong thing? What if upset her even more? There was no way he could cope with this. Not on his own.

John shot him a hopeful smile but to Sherlock, it looked idiotic. "No one knows Sophia better than you."

Sherlock Holmes prayed that that wasn't true.

/

The stupid clothes that Sophia had borrowed from Madison had been bundled up and shoved into the corner of Sophia's room. She hadn't liked those clothes anyway. Madison was much smaller than Sophia was. Slimmer but more developed in the right areas. The clothes were too tight and showed off too much of her skin. She had been cold all night and constantly trying to cover up the little cleavage that she had. Cleavage that had been perfectly constructed with bundles of tissue paper stuffed into her bra. That had been Madison's idea. She said no one would notice. The boy surely didn't notice when he was grabbing at her chest.

She was much more comfier now wearing her favourite over-sized pyjamas. Her face was bare now as well. Free from the thick makeup that Madison had put on her. Foundation that didn't at all match her pale skin, lip gloss that was too thick and goopy, blusher that was too bold and eyeshadow that was supposed to bring out her eyes but just looked ridiculous. Mary had wiped it all off for her, telling her she was much prettier without all that rubbish on her face.

Madison had said she needed it. She said that Sophia was too pale and she dressed like an old woman. She said a lot of things like that, Sophia realised looking back. Things that were rude and mean but you didn't realise until later. Then, even when Sophia realised that what she had said was rather mean, she told herself she didn't care. That it didn't really matter because Madison was cool and popular and paying her attention.

At least, she hadn't thought she minded. Now after all this she found herself extremely angry at her so called friend and rather disillusioned with the idea of being popular or cool. She didn't feel cool anymore. She felt stupid and pathetic. She felt dirty. But before she could burst out into tears all over again, there was a knock at her bedroom door.

"Come in." She called, her voice muffled by the pillow she had shoved her face into. The door creaked open and, after hearing nothing for a few seconds, Sophia stuck her head out of the pile of blankets and pillows she had buried herself under.

Her father stood in the doorway, hesitant to walk through. There were two mugs in his hands: a boring plain one and Sophia's favourite one. Molly had gotten that mug for her a while back. It had a picture of a grumpy looking dog on it. Grumpy looking dogs always made Sophia smile. Well, until now.

"Hot chocolate." Sherlock stated awkwardly from the doorway. "When you were younger you used to have one every night." Sophia's eyes began to well up with tears although she didn't know why. A lump grew in her throat. She buried herself back underneath her nest of blankets so her father couldn't see her grow teary.

There were a few moments of silence before Sophia heard her father's footsteps coming towards her. She peered out from a small gap between her blankets and watched as her father sat himself down on the floor next to the bed. He reached over to place Sophia's mug on her bedside table before taking a sip from his own.

This wasn't at all what Sophia had expected. She had expected Sherlock to be furious as soon as he saw her. She was anticipating a screaming match and had even thought up a few good arguments to deflect the blame from herself. Arguments that crumbled beneath her own scrutiny as she went over them in her mind. Deep down she knew that lying to her father so she could go to a party was an awful and idiotic idea. She should have never agreed to it.

Maybe it was Sherlock's plan for the silence to eat away at her or maybe he truly didn't know what to say to her. Whether it was planned or not, Sophia found herself bursting into tears. Big heavy sobs that shook her body until she couldn't breathe. Pushing herself out of bed in a tangle of blankets and pillows, she threw herself down onto her father's lap.

Still, he stayed silent. His arms wrapped around her body but he didn't say anything. He let her cry and cry until she couldn't cry anymore and her loud sobs decreased to shaking, gasping breaths.

"I said no." She whispered as her head lay resting on her father's chest. "I didn't want to do _anything_ but he said I should be grateful. He said no one else would want me because I'm not pretty enough."

"He's wrong." Sherlock shot back angrily. His voice was practically shaking with fury. He tried to calm himself down before speaking again. Remembering what Mary said about trying to be sympathetic, he didn't want Sophia to think that his anger was directed towards her. "There is nothing wrong with you."

"I've never had a boyfriend." Sophia replied, her voice growing emotional yet again. "I've not even got close. I'm old and I've never had a boyfriend."

"Sophia, you are fourteen years old." Sherlock exclaimed, not quite believing what he was hearing. "You are still a child. You have your whole life ahead of you."

"Madison's already had four boyfriends." Sophia argued. She reached over to the bedside table for her mug of hot chocolate and brought it to her lips. Sherlock watched her, holding himself back from calling his daughter's friend any names.

"That doesn't make her a better person." He said instead. "None of this will matter in ten years time. It won't even matter in five years time. Your life doesn't depend on how many boyfriends you've had in high school." Sophia let out a hum. She wasn't going to out right agree with her father but at least she gave a noise that sort of told him she saw where he was coming from.

"Everyone in school has crushes." She stated. "You know, like boys they want to kiss and stuff... but I don't. I don't really think I want to kiss any of the boys at school. I think there's something wrong with me."

"Don't be stupid, Sophia." Sherlock scolded before catching himself and remembering the delicate situation they were in. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes momentarily. Why couldn't Mary have stayed? She could have sorted all this out. A thought ran across his head momentarily. An idea. He could call Molly and ask her to come down right now to sort it all out. But he thought against it. "You might start to find boys attractive later on." He struggled to say. "You might never find boy attractive at all. You might find girls attractive. You might find boys and girls attractive. You might never find anyone attractive. Whatever happens, there is nothing wrong with you."

There was a few seconds silence. Sherlock wondered if he had said something wrong. He felt her head rest once more against his chest. Her arms came up to wrap around his neck. He was reminded of her as a child. Of when she used to be desperate to be picked up when she was upset. His arms wrapped tighter around her and he rested his chin on the top of her head.

"Thank you." She whispered.

They didn't speak of that evening again. Sophia didn't bring it back up and Sherlock didn't push her to talk about it. The closest they ever got to talking about that evening was one day after school when Sophia mentioned, with a suspicious look shot towards her father, that the boy who had brought her to the bedroom and placed his fumbling hands on her body, had been expelled from school. Something to do with being found with a class B drug on school property. They said he had been hysterical. That he had cried like a small child and claimed it was planted on him. There would be no way he'd get into the top universities he had been planning to go to now. He claimed his entire life had been ruined.

Sherlock pretended that he was shocked.

And Sophia pretended to believe him.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Well, there we go! Thank you for all the reviews, favourites and alerts so far! They do mean the world to me. _

_Please keep reviewing! I love hearing from you all! If anyone has any ideas for the one word prompt for the next chapter (the letter C) shoot them on over! Anything you wanna see just tell me and I'll try my best to do so!_

 _annnyyywayyyy, I hope you liked this chapter! I can't wait to hear from you._


	3. C

_C is for Cakes_

It had been one of those days. In fact, it had been a long string of 'those days'. Days that everyone around Sherlock dreaded. They were days when the well of cases ran dry. The emails that came in could be solved within five minutes and without leaving the flat. Lestrade hadn't asked for his help in a while either. He hadn't needed it. All experiments he could think of had been done or weren't 'safe enough' in John's opinion. There was absolutely nothing to do. It was official. Sherlock Holmes was bored.

Mind numbingly bored.

Smash-your-head-against-the-wall bored.

Bored enough to consider visiting the drug den across town.

How long had it been since the last time he had used? He had only visited that place once whilst he had Sophia in his care and that was for a case. Magnussen. He remembered how distraught his daughter had been about being left to stay with Mycroft for those few days. His trip certainly had left a path of destruction in it's wake. He could almost feel the slap that Molly had gave him.

But after all, that had been a few days. He could go now, do what he needed, and be back before Sophia's bedtime. She was in school at the moment. If she got home to an empty flat she would go downstairs to Mrs Hudson and spend the evening there. They would all just assume he was on a case. No one would have to know.

His eyes flickered over to where his shoes lay near the door.

No one would have to know.

But then the door to the flat was thrown open, banging against the wall. Sophia whirled into the room like a hurricane, dropping her school bag on the floor, not knowing what her father had just been considering. She charged towards him, kicking off her shoes on the way so they lay discarded near John's chair.

"I have a case!" She yelled, throwing herself onto his lap. He let out a grunt of pain, trying to push her away. She was getting too old, too big, to be throwing herself on him. She was ten now and growing at a rapid speed. "Well, not exactly a case." She continued as she shifted up to sitting on the arm of her father's chair. "Not a _detective_ case but I know you've been bored so this is better than nothing."

"I doubt it." Sherlock grumbled, watching as his daughter reached into her cardigan pocket. She rolled her eyes at her father's attitude and pulled out, what looked like, a folded up piece of paper.

"Read." She ordered, dropping the paper into her father's hands. Sherlock refrained from telling her off for being so demanding and instead unfolded the paper. Much to his disappointment it was nothing to do with a nice mass murder or even a suspicious suicide. In fact it was probably the most boring thing he could've thought of.

"Your school is doing a bake sale." He grunted, tossing the paper back to Sophia. "How is this supposed to be a case?"

"Our class has been asked to bake the cakes and stuff to sell." She explained eagerly, catching the piece of paper and stuffing it back into her pocket. "It's for charity of something. I don't know." She waved her hand dismissively, batting away, what she saw as, the less important part. "And I need to bake the best cupcakes or cookies or muffins or _whatever_ in the whole school."

"We'll go supermarket and buy some there."

"NO!" Sophia cried. "No, we have to make it all here! It has to be homemade."

"The letter says..." Sherlock began, reaching over to Sophia's pocket. She leapt to her feet, clasping her hands over the pocket of her cardigan.

"I don't care what the letter says." She snapped back, somewhat overdramatically. " _We're_ making homemade cakes and they need to be the best."

"Any particular reason you're so determined to make the best cakes?"

"I want to help the charity."

"What charity is it?" Sherlock asked, a smirk appearing on his face. He watched as his daughter let out a huff, shrugging her shoulders dramatically.

"Something to help people. I don't know."

"Sophia..." Sherlock warned, using the voice he had perfected over the years to scare her into telling the truth. He had learnt it from Mycroft. It was the same tone used to get him to tell the truth when he was a child. The same look in his eyes that threatened something worse than he could imagine if he didn't spit out the truth right there and then.

"Fine." She sighed. "There's a girl in my class who said she's going to make the best cakes in the whole class and I want to prove her wrong." Sherlock didn't speak. Even before Sophia had came into his life he knew that if you were trying to get someone to talk the best thing you could do was stay silent. People were desperate to fill silences. Sophia just so happened to be a prime example of that. "Her name's Marissa and she said that her cakes are going to be the best because her mums only buys organic, boring food. They're going to make fancy healthy cupcakes with avocado and cabbage and all that stupid nonsense." There was a pause before Sophia started again, this time a little less confidently. "So I told her that vegetables don't belong in cakes and that healthy food is gross _and then_ she said that I wouldn't know what proper food is because you can't cook for me because you're a man _and then_ I said that was sexist _and then_ she said it's true _and then_ I said it's not true it's sexist _and then_ someone told the lunch lady I was saying rude words _and then_ the mean lunch lady, you know the one, the one who has one eyebrow slightly higher than the other, yeah, well she made me stand in the naughty corner for five minutes and Marissa and all her stupid healthy friends were laughing at me. It's not fair. Sexism isn't even a bad word. The lunch lady said that I shouldn't be talking about sex but I was talking about sexism. I mean, I don't even know what sex is. Daddy, what is..."

"OK." Sherlock cut her off, clapping his hands down on his lap. "When is this cake sale?"

"Tomorrow." Sophia declared.

"Tomorrow?" Sherlock shot back in disbelief.

"Yeah, we got the letter a week ago but I forgot about it until now."

"Well, maybe you should go and ask Mrs Hudson."

"Mrs Hudson's not home until tomorrow." Sophia replied slowly, as if she thought her father was stupid. "She told us this morning. Don't you remember? She's gone to visit her friend. Do you not listen to anything?"

"Well, I suppose baking a few cupcakes can't be that hard." Sherlock grumbled, reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone. Sophia clapped her hands in excitement and jumped up and down a few times.

"They have to be the best cupcakes in the world." She reminded him, watching as he got to his feet. With his eyes still stuck to his phone, he began to make his way to the kitchen. Sophia followed happily, clapping her hands as she began to think of the look on Marissa's stupid face when she came in with the best cakes in the world.

"Well, there's our first problem." Sherlock declared after pulling open a kitchen cupboard. "We have no baking supplies." He stared at the almost empty cupboard and began to wonder when the last time they went shopping was. There were tins and jars but nothing they needed. No flour or icing sugar. He let out a sigh and briefly considered giving up. If it wasn't for that young girl in Sophia's class who thought he couldn't do it, he probably would have. "Get your shoes on." He declared, slamming the kitchen cupboard shut. "We're going shopping."

/

"Faster!" Sophia cried from where she sat inside the shopping trolley. Sherlock rolled his eyes, not giving into the temptation of pushing his daughter at full speed down the aisle. He was already regretting getting the trolley. They hadn't even arrived at their intended aisle and Sophia had already pulled items off of the shelves and into the cart. She didn't listen when her father told her that they didn't need any fizzy drinks or special cereal with cartoons on. They were just there for the home baking aisle. They were going to load up on cake mix and icing sugar and get the hell out of there.

"But cake mix is cheating." Sophia whined as Sherlock parked the trolley in front of the shelves lined with brightly coloured boxes.

"No it's not." Sherlock argued. "We're still baking. Someone's just put most of the ingredients together for us."

"It's cheating." Sophia repeated forcefully.

"Fine." Sherlock huffed. "Let's just get a few for back up." He reached towards the cheapest boxes and picked a few different ones up. Cookies, brownies, fairy cakes, muffins. He chucked them all into the trolley next to Sophia before pulling his phone out of his pocket.

They had chosen a few recipes to try. Well, Sophia had chosen them. They were going with chocolate cupcakes, cookies and gingerbread men. All of which, seemed simple enough. Sherlock had made a list of ingredients they'd need on his phone and managed to grab everything he needed and stick it in the trolley without much fight from his daughter.

"We need marshmallows to go on top." She announced as Sherlock dropped the last item they needed into the trolley. "And those chocolate stars."

"Fine." Sherlock muttered, reaching up to grab them.

"And edible glitter."

"No." He snapped. "I'm drawing the line at edible glitter."

"Sophia!" A voice chirped. Sherlock saw his daughter's face fall as her eyes landed on someone behind him. A painfully fake smile grew on her face. The same smile that Sherlock knew all too well and used whenever John asked him to at least pretend to be polite to a rude or boring client.

"Marissa." She replied through gritted teeth. Sherlock turned to see the young girl who had caused this whole situation. She, like the tall woman pushing a trolley next to her, was blonde with blue eyes and rosy cheeks. The sort of child that an artist would draw carol singing on a vintage Christmas card. Angelic and perfect. She wore a pink velour tracksuit which perfectly matched the one the woman standing next to her wore.

"Hi, Brianne Charleton." The woman announced, sticking her hand out for Sherlock to shake. He hesitated, looking down at the perfectly manicured hand before hesitantly reaching to shake it. "I'm Marissa's mum. My daughter talks a lot about your Sophia."

"Sherlock Holmes." He grumbled in reply. He wondered exactly what her daughter was saying about 'his Sophia'. He forced a smile so that he wouldn't accidentally snarl. "Sophia's father."

"So it's true!" The woman exclaimed. "Sophia's father is the famous detective."

"He's not famous." Sophia snorted. From the corner of his eye he saw his daughter push her jacket over the cake mix boxes without taking her eyes off the pair. She was always adamant that her father was not at all famous. No matter how many times she saw journalists crowd outside the flat or saw his photograph in the morning paper. It never really impressed her. She was far too used to her father solving crimes to be impressed by other people noticing it. If he managed to get rid of a huge spider from the bathroom though, that was impressive.

"I saw you in the newspaper the other week." The woman continued, completely ignoring Sophia. "You proved that that fat, old banker was faking his own kidnapping."

"Yes... well..." Sherlock fumbled, not knowing what to say. The case hadn't been that hard or even very interesting. It had been a slow news day and that was probably the only reason his photograph was stuck a few pages in.

"Sophia. Are you only shopping for baking stuff now? Haven't you made anything for the cake sale yet? It's tomorrow." The young girl said, her voice annoyingly high-pitched. She looked up at her mother smugly and folded her arms across her chest. "We've already made ours during our special mummy, daughter day. We have a special day together every Sunday."

"We think it's important for Marissa to have some special girl time." The woman smiled, reaching down and draping an arm over her daughter's shoulder. "What with her older brother and father taking up so much of my time at home. It's important for a young girl to have a bit of girl time, you know. No boys. Just us girls." Sherlock saw Sophia tense next to him, her hands curl into fists next to the flour. The woman seemed to catch herself. A panic spread across her face. "Marissa tells me that you're on your own looking after Sophia. You know, I wouldn't mind taking her with us on our special mummy-daughter days. Give her some female attention. Heaven knows there's a lot of stuff coming up in her life that you can't possibly deal with. You know, being a man." She smiled but it didn't reach her eyes. There was a look on her face almost as if she was disgusted. As if Sherlock should be ashamed to be raising a daughter on his own while he was a man.

"My dad's the best woman in the world." Sophia declared rather angrily. Her cheeks were beginning to burn red and Sherlock could spot the tears gathering in her eyes. She had never been good with anger, he mused. A lot of the time it came out in tears and sobs and stomping her feet on the floor whilst insisting she wasn't crying.

"Sophia has plenty of women in her life." Sherlock said, desperately trying not to snarl. "Plus, I find myself pretty approachable and knowledgeable towards her... female... issues."

"Yeah. Dad knows everything about women. He practically is a woman himself." Sophia snapped, loud enough for a older woman passing them to turn her head.

"Oh, well, we better let you go." The woman announced, suddenly rather eager to leave. "You're going to have to be quick if you're making those cakes for the bake sale tomorrow."

"We were busy all weekend." Sophia snapped. She was no longer wearing her fake smile but now quite obviously glaring at the young girl. "Solving cases... at Scotland Yard... with _Molly_ and _Mary_ and _Mrs Hudson_ and even _Sally_." Whilst she wasn't exactly lying, their weekend had involved a small case, dinner at John's with Molly and a visit to Scotland Yard where they did see Sally who had recently seemed to warm up to the young girl, Sophia seemed to be bending the truth. Sensing she was growing more angrier by the second, Sherlock dropped his hand down to her shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"It was a hectic weekend." He replied, using his 'normal-person' voice that had always made his daughter laugh. "You know how it is. Busy, busy, busy. Although, even with the ceremony at Scotland Yard and the meeting with the Prime Minister, we still managed to fit in our daddy-daughter pedicures." If the woman could tell Sherlock was lying through his teeth, she didn't show it. After saying a quick goodbye, she scuttered off with her terribly angelic looking child holding her hand. Sherlock glared at their retreating backs. It was obvious now why his daughter was so obsessed with this bake sale. That girl, and her mother, were horrid and there was now nothing the detective wanted more than to crush them. Metaphorically, of course, and through the medium of baked goods.

"Come on." He grumbled, grabbing hold of the shopping trolley's handle bar. After a quick glance over the contents they had collected, he was satisfied they had everything they needed and began to make his way to the checkout. "We've got cakes to make."

/

Sophia was impressed. Terribly impressed. In fact, she was probably in shock.

"I don't know why you're so surprised." Sherlock announced as he whisked another bowl of cake batter. Sophia didn't look up, instead she decided to concentrate on decorating the gingerbread men in front of her. This one was going to be a tiny gingerbread Lestrade. The next one was going to be a little gingerbread Mrs Hudson. "You know that I-"

"Am the cleverest man in the entire world." Sophia interrupted, her voice mimicking a posher version of his own. "I know. I know. I just didn't think you were any good at anything... you know... _normal_."

"What on Earth does that mean?" Sherlock snapped, stopping what he was doing to look at his daughter.

"You know, what I mean." She sighed, dropping the tube of icing down onto the table. "The stuff that everyone else does all the time. Like talking to people. You're not good at talking to people without upsetting them."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"You've made my headteacher cry twice." Sophia pointed out. She looked down at the gingerbread man on the plate in front of her. All of them had been given smiling faces and buttons and some had even been given hair or a beard. Next up was to decorate the chocolate cupcakes. Although, she didn't know why her father had insisted on making them both. She would have just been content with the cupcakes but he was determined to make everything. Gingerbread, cupcakes, scones, cookies, muffins, jam tarts and he was still making more. Sophia didn't even know what time it was. Surely it was time for bed.

"Well, you know that I studied chemistry at university." Sherlock muttered, turning back to the oven to check on the third batch of cupcakes. "Baking is basically just that. It's a science."

"It's probably time to finish." Sophia offered. "We've made more than enough."

"But it's not perfect." Sherlock muttered, his attention mostly to trying to unload the oven with one hand whilst balancing a mixing bowl on his hip with the other. "And it needs to be perfect. I need to beat that awful woman."

" _You_ need to beat her?!" Sophia cried, spinning around in her seat to face her father. This had all gone too far now. She needed to stop him. Never in her life would she had ever thought she'd want her father to stop baking her cakes and cookies. In theory it was a dream come true, but in reality it made her worry. He was terrible at looking after himself at the best of times. He would go days without sleeping or eating or even washing. If he had something to distract him like this, he'd probably never remember to do anything else again. He'd die in the kitchen. A cupcake in his hand and an apron tied around his waist.

"I mean you." He grumbled. Sophia shook her head in disbelief. "You need to beat that awful woman and her awful spawn." This had to end now. There was no way she could overpower him. The idea of a sharp instrument to help her flickered across her mind but she soon thought better than to stab her own father. He had told her all about jail. She wouldn't be able to last a day there.

"Whatever." She sighed, an idea springing to mind. Carefully, she got to her feet, her eyes scanning the table until she found what she was looking for. "I'm going to the toilet."

"Yes. Well, be quick." Sherlock ordered, his back to her as she slowly walked towards the door. She kept her eyes planted on her father's phone, wedged between a plate of muffins and a plate of cookies. Her hand darted out, snatching it and shoving it into her pocket before her father could turn around to see her. "You have a lot of cake decorating to do."

Sophia rolled her eyes and brought her hand to her head in a mock salute as she left the kitchen.

/

Shifting her weight nervously from one leg to another, Molly banged her fist on the door to 221. She glanced down at her phone to see if there had been any messages come through since she last checked a second or so ago. Nothing. There had been nothing since Sherlock's phone had texted the words: _Come to the flat as fast as you can. Hurry!_

The door was yanked open. Expecting to see Sherlock, Molly was quite surprised to see Sophia staring up at her.

"Sophia. You should be in bed. It's a school night." She announced as Sophia ushered her inside, closing the door behind her. The young girl was still wearing her school uniform. The white polo shirt was stained with something that looked like smears of chocolate. On closer inspection, Molly noticed the small patches of flour stuck to her face along with chocolate in the corners of her mouth. "What on Earth's going on?" Molly exclaimed, reaching forward and brushing some flour from Sophia's nose. "I got your father's text."

"That was from me." Sophia told, grabbing Molly's hand and pulling her towards the stairs. "I need help. I need you to stop him."

"Stop who? Sherlock?"

"He's gone mad." Sophia hissed, her voice growing quieter the closer they got to the flat's front door. "He won't let me go to sleep. He's treating me like a slave."

"What are you talking about?" Molly asked, still not knowing exactly what was going on. Sophia didn't answer, instead she pushed open the door to the flat and dragged Molly through the living room.

They stopped at the entrance to the kitchen. The problem was evident at that point. The kitchen looked as if a small bomb had gone off. There were kitchen utensils, packages, jars, tea towels, baked goods and loose food everywhere. Cupcakes, cookies, biscuits, scones, some things that Molly didn't even recognise. What on Earth was going on?

"Ah, Molly." Sherlock smiled when he caught sight of the woman hovering in the doorway. There was a mixing bowl resting at the crook of his arm, his hand clutching onto a wooden spoon. "Come to help us bake?"

"I really don't think you need any help with that." Molly replied cautiously. Sherlock looked smug for a breif second, looking over at his daughter as if to say 'I told you so'. "But I do think you've gone a bit too far. What are you trying to achieve?"

"Sophia has a bake sale tomorrow." Sherlock declared, looking slightly offended. He placed the bowl down onto a small clearing on the counter.

"And you're planning on selling to the whole of the school district?"

"Well, I just wanted to be sure she'd have enough." Sherlock shot back. He watched as Molly stepped into the kitchen, taking in the amount of baked goods in the room. Admittedly, they did look delicious but it was the number of them that was overwhelming.

"I think she'll have enough to last her until her eighteenth birthday." She said picking up a cookie only to instantly drop it as it burnt her fingers. "Even if you sold one cake to every child at the school you'd still have a bunch left over. I really do think it's time you just went to bed."

"It's not about the amount, Molly." Sherlock dismissed, sticking his wooden spoon back into the bowl. "I've almost perfected the cupcake recipe."

"They taste great as they are." Sophia whined, dropping down onto a dining room seat. It was definitely time for her to go to bed, Molly thought. The poor girl looked exhausted.

"They need to be perfect. Anything less than perfect won't win."

"Win?" Molly repeated. "I thought this was a bake sale. Not a competition." Sherlock dismissed her with a wave of his hand, throwing his attention back to the mixture in his bowl. "Right." Molly sighed, deciding it was time to put her foot down. She began to usher Sophia to her feet, planting a hand on her shoulder to lead her towards her bedroom. "I'm going to get Sophia ready for bed. You're going to clean up this mess and find a place to store all this food before Sophia needs her bedtime story read."

"I'm almost done." Sherlock grumbled, his back to the pair as they made their way across the kitchen.

"John and Mary are away for their anniversary, aren't they?" Molly asked. She waited in the kitchen doorway as Sophia hurried off to the bathroom. Sherlock spun around on his heel to look at the woman with a raise of his eyebrow. She shrugged ever so slightly. A breif glimpse of the timid pathologist he had first met flashed across her face. "I just think it'd be a shame to have to ruin their anniversary weekend because Sherlock Holmes won't stop baking cupcakes."

All evidence of timid and shy Molly was gone. Sherlock was almost taken back. She had threatened him. An effective threat at that. John would be furious if someone had to ring him up and tell him he needed to get back to London to give Sherlock a telling off. Mary would be even angrier. The idea was enough for Sherlock to almost drop the bowl he was holding.

"Tell Sophia to chose a book." He grumbled, defeated. Molly nodded, watching as he placed the bowl down onto the counter once more.

"Thank you."

/

The cakes that Sophia brought to school the next day were definitely considered to be the best ones in the class by both students and teachers. The only thing that mattered to Sophia though was that they did much better that Marissa's stupid healthy ones. Molly had been right when, in the bathroom as she helped clean the flour off her face and get her into her nice clean pyjamas, she told her that children weren't going to but healthy food when there were chocolate cakes for sale for the same price. When given the choice, she told her, most kids didn't go for the healthy option.

Of course, Sophia didn't bring in all the cakes and treats that her and her father had made. She certainly brought in more than any other child which did impress her teacher who spoke to her father after class. She told him she was very grateful for the effort they had put in, mentioning that Sophia had claimed it had been a special father/daughter bonding experience for them and she had enjoyed the whole experience. That, of course, had been a lie but Marissa had been within ear shot as she had said it.

It certainly didn't hurt Sherlock's ego to be told he was doing a great job with his daughter, that she was happy, doing well in school and spoke of him fondly every day. It was only a blessing or a lucky coincidence that Marissa's perfectly polished mother was also waiting for her daughter to leave the classroom and managed to hear every word.

The rest of the cakes managed to earn Sherlock and Sophia praise and gratitude as well. It was Molly's idea to give them away, of course keeping a box or two for themselves. They started off at Scotland Yard. Sophia told Lestrade and his team that the cookies had been baked especially for them as a thank you for working hard to keep murderers and drug dealers off the streets. She had even created a card using a folded up piece of A4 printer paper and some crayons. The picture on the front depicted Lestrade wresting a murderer with a bloody knife to the floor.

The box full to the brim of gingerbread men were given to Sherlock's parents. The tub of tarts was handed over to Mycroft and Athena. The plate of scones was presented to Mrs Hudson upon her arrival. Molly took home a few tupperware containers full of treats and the rest were left in the flat. Either to be eaten by Sherlock during the middle of the night when he refused to sleep or Sophia when she ran back into the flat after school. Occasionally, Sophia would hand one to a sobbing client who would wipe at their eyes and thank her with a small smile.

Marrissa's cakes, which she only managed to sell a few of and even then they were to pitying teachers and members staff, probably went uneaten. Tossed into the bin when they went stale and gross.

Sophia felt sorry for her.

She may have a mum who stayed at home. Who picked her up from school every day and took her home to their big house where they'd eat organic food and do yoga with her boring siblings. She may have a dad who had a boring job every single day that brought in lots and lots of money that he'd give to his wife who would spend it on their stupid girl's day's out. But that was all boring.

She never did any of the fun stuff that Sophia and her father got to do. She never got to taste the special celebratory cake that Mrs Hudson made when her father solved a triple murder. She had never been whisked from her bed in the middle of the night and led to a crime scene at the houses of parliament whilst wearing her fluffy pyjamas. She had never fallen asleep on the sofa, listening to her father play the violin. She had never watched, with her face pressed against the window, as her father and his best friend gave a statement to the reporters who crowded around outside her house with big cameras asking how her father could have figured out the man was faking his own kidnapping.

Sophia would rather have all of that than some stupid mother-daughter day once a week.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _Boy, oh, boy that was a long break! Sorry about that! I moved closer to university and my new house has NO WIFI YET. I've only just managed to sneak to the campus library to upload this. ANYWAY, thank you guys for the lovely reviews! I'll try and reply to all of them before my wifi is cruely snatched away from me (and by that I mean before I get hungry and need to go home)_

 _I hope you all liked this chapter!_

 _I'd like to thank BoardWalkBlue, I-am-sherlocked-for-life-221b and kuppcake for suggesting this idea!_

 _If you have any ideas for anything you'd like to see (past the letter E) then just tell me and I'll see what I can do!_

 _Please review and fav and alert!_

 _Thank you!_


	4. D

_Disorder_

-Ten Years Old-

When Sophia's teacher rang Sherlock to request that he come 'in for a chat' after school, the detective just assumed it was about his daughter's grades. He had long since come to terms with the fact his daughter didn't take after her father's side of the family in intelect. He wasn't exactly thrilled. He still dreamt that one day his daughter would become the genius he had always hoped. Maybe, he thought, she was just late. After all, nothing in primary school really mattered. What Romans wore and what insects could be found where really didn't seem very important.

Plus, there was the fact that if Sophia didn't see the point in something, she wouldn't do it. Any homework that didn't relate to one of the many careers she was considering at the time (at this moment she really wanted to be a pathologist, last week she wanted to be a vet) she wouldn't do it. Sherlock had tried to lie and tell her that learning about volcanos was very, very important but she could see right through him.

"What does it matter?" She had whined, pushing the sheet of paper across the table. "It doesn't matter if I understand why they erupt. It's still going to happen." Sherlock couldn't really think of a valid argument. He usually ended up using bribery. If she did at least half of the homework she could have ice cream before bed.

So, when he reached the classroom after all the other children had been dismissed, he was ready to pretend to listen and care about his daughters slipping grades. After that he could take her to John for a good telling off. John and Mary were always so much better at discipline than he was.

"I appreciate you coming down," Sophia's teacher said as she led Sherlock over to her desk. "From what Sophia tells me, I figure you must be a very busy man."

The detective wasted no time deducing her. Not too old. Just recently qualified it seemed. Recently divorced judging by the indentation and tan line on her ring finger. A short marriage. High school sweethearts, most likely. Lived alone in a rather nice house. In London? Rich parents were the only reasonable explanation. No one could afford a nice house in London on a teacher's salary. No one could afford the holidays she'd been on just a teacher's salary either. The clothes were the give-away for the holidays. Patchwork style, low crotch pants from Nepal. Heavy bracelets from somewhere in Mexico. Beaded necklace from Kenya. A shawl from somewhere Sherlock couldn't quite put his finger on.

There was also the obvious signs of recreational marijuana use. Nothing too much. Maybe once a week. Sherlock approved of that more than he did the year six teacher who seemed to always have signs that he drank a bit too much the night before and had undiagnosed anger issues. Sherlock was planning to have the man fired before Sophia would reach that year.

"I just want to start off by saying that Sophia is a real delight to have in our classroom." The teacher, Ms Sallow she had introduced herself as on the first day of term, declared. "Such a creative little girl. A beautiful soul, really." She glanced fondly over to where Sophia sat at the other side of the classroom, out of earshot in the library section.

Sherlock knew what the woman was trying to do. Sophia had made him aware of the social technique a while ago. It was called a 'sandwich compliment'. Sophia said the teachers did it all the time when they wanted to tell them they did something wrong. They'd start with a compliment, criticise them and then finally add another compliment.

"It's like..." Sophia had told her father one evening, trying to think up a good example. "I'd tell you, 'Daddy, you're really good at deducing stuff. Sometimes when you're working too hard on a case you don't shower and you start to smell. But... you're really great at... you know... erm... making Uncle Mycroft angry."

So, just as Sherlock was expecting, next came the critique.

"My only real concern is that... well... Sophia's not like the other children." The woman said, her voice lowered so Sophia, who was too far away to hear anyway, didn't listen in. "She's different."

"Different, how?" Sherlock asked.

"Well, you know that her grades aren't really the best." The teacher began carefully. "It seems she's prone to getting distracted easily. She'll become easily bored with a subject during class time." Sherlock nodded. This wasn't exactly news to him. He knew his daughter didn't have the best attention span, especially when it was something she didn't care about.

"She's the same at home." Sherlock offered, hoping it was the right thing to say to get the woman off of his back. Instead, she seemed to frown and nod sympathetically.

"I've also noticed that she doesn't seem to have a lot of friends." She continued, her voice annoyingly soft, as if she understood and wanted to make everything better. "Whilst a lot of our children seemed to have formed strong friendship groups, I notice Sophia only usually hangs around with one or two other children or on her own."

"She likes her own company." Sherlock stated, growing more irritated. "We've had problems before with the other children name calling."

"Yes, it does seem that the other children... don't seem to... understand Sophia." The teacher replied, dismissing Sherlock's obvious implications that the other kids were to blame. The bratty kids who called Sophia weird or stupid. "It seems Sophia doesn't have the same... social skills as children her own age."

"No." Sherlock agreed, although he didn't see it as a problem, merely a personality trait. He briefly began to wonder if mentioning her mother would wind the conversation to a close. John had said that he had stopped a teacher scolding Sophia for her swearing by mentioning Sophia's abandonment issues caused by her mother. That very well might work now.

"It does seem that Sophia's interests are more... unusual. Her topics of conversation seem to be a bit too... I don't know... morbid than the other children's are."

"She's interested in pursuing a career in forensics." Sherlock told, almost through gritted teeth. He didn't appreciate his daughter's personality being relayed back to him as if it were a problem. Sophia was a happy little girl. She was content, well fed, clean and in areas her teacher couldn't see, rather smart.

"She does have rather niche interests." Then, like a slap to the face, the young teacher said in a rush of air: "Have you thought of having your daughter tested?"

"Tested." Sherlock repeated incredulously.

"By a psychologist," The teacher continued. "I think that Sophia may have a mental disorder. A form of autism maybe." Sherlock stared back at the woman in disbelief. She took his silence as a sign to continue. "Possibly ADHD? If we know more, if we get a proper diagnosis, then we can support her more in class."

Before Sherlock could say anything, before he could tell the woman how much of an idiot she actually was, his phone bleeped and buzzed to life in his pocket. Snapping him out of a numbing sense of shock. Reaching down to his pocket with a fist Sherlock hadn't even realised was clenched, he let the woman continued babbling nonsense. He was easily able to zone it out as he checked who had sent him a text.

 _Are you home? Mary and I are gonna pop over to return the teddy Sophia left at ours the other day. Any chance of a cuppa? - John_

An idea flashed in Sherlock's mind. If Sophia had been telling stories about him to the teacher, saying how busy he was as a detective and no doubt embellishing stories of his cases to make them far more dramatic than they really were, he could easily use that to his advantage.

"I'm so sorry." He said, the statement not sounding at all convincing as he cut the teacher off mid sentence. He got to his feet, stuffing the phone back into his pocket. "Emergency case. We need to leave."

"Oh... but..." The teacher started, getting to her feet hesitantly. Sherlock didn't leave time for her to continue. He had already set off towards the classroom door.

"Sophia. Hurry." He called before looking back over his shoulder at the woman. "Government matter. If I don't get to Downing Street within the next half an hour then Great Britain is as good as dead." Sophia let out an excited giggle and was soon rushing across the room, backpack in hand.

"Oh my." The teacher gasped. "Well, you will think over what we spoke about, won't you?" Sherlock gripped his daughter's hand, pulling her towards the door faster than her little legs could handle. She didn't protest though. The idea of the country falling apart without her father's help was enough to get her to comply.

"Yes, once I've finished saving the entire country from impending doom then I'll mull it over." The detective barked before throwing himself and his daughter out of the door and back into the playground.

/

John and Mary's visit lasted longer than they had suspected, like it usually did. One cup of tea turned into two which turned into three and soon enough it was time for Sophia to go to bed. Of course, the young girl protested and whined when her father pointed this out. It was no fair, she cried, she wanted to stay up and talk with the adults. As a compromise, Mary offered to tuck her in. After a few moments considering, and probably then realising how tired she was, Sophia agreed.

As soon as the sound of Sophia's bedroom door closing came, John got down to business.

"Right then, what's going on?" He sighed. Sherlock let out a hum of acknowledgement, the same noise he made when Sophia was telling a story and asked if he was actually listening. And, like those times today, he didn't tear his eyes away from his laptop screen. It was obvious that, whatever he was doing on his computer, held more interest to him than anything else. "Sherlock!" John snapped. "You've barely spoken to us since we got here. What on Earth are you doing?"

"Case." Sherlock grumbled, offering no more explanation. John, not quite trusting his friend, decided to use the man's undivided attention to his advantage. He leant forward from his arm chair and reached across to Sherlock. It was easy to pluck the laptop out of his hands. The detective didn't even notice it coming.

"John." He hissed, reaching out to snatch it back.

"Jesus, Sherlock, what are you looking this up for?" John asked, dodging his friend's hand and leaning back in his seat. The webpage on Sherlock's browser was a rather official, medical looking one. That in itself wasn't very strange. It was the title that made John concerned. "Childhood disorders." He read with a frown. "This isn't for a case, Sherlock."

"Yes it is." He spat back, rather like a sulking child. John looked up at him with raised eyebrows, daring him to lie even more. The detective sighed, sinking back in his seat. "Fine." He huffed, arms folding over his chest. "I had a meeting with Sophia's teacher today..."

"Is she ok?" John asked, concern flashing across his face. "Has something happened?"

"Nothing's... _happened._ "

"Then why did you need a meeting?" John prompted. "Why all this?"

"Sophia doesn't have many friends." Sherlock started. John shrugged easily dismissive as Sherlock first was. That was until Sherlock began to think more and more about it. Until it began to niggle away at his mind. Why wouldn't Sophia have a disorder? After all, he was a sociopath, they had had run ins with Moriarty, her mother had abandoned her, it would be strange if there was nothing wrong with her.

"She's never seemed that bothered about the amount of mates she has." John dismissed.

"Her teacher says she doesn't socialise the way the other kids do. She says Sophia's chosen conversation subjects are too morbid for the other children."

"Well, you do take her to crime scenes, Sherlock." John chuckled, obviously not taking this as seriously as Sherlock was. He cast a glare to his friend but John continued. "She spends her weekends in the mortuary with Molly whilst you do your research or whatever. She's seen more dead bodies down there than probably all of those teachers put together. It's not strange that she has an interest in it. If you were bothering to listen to her before she did say she wants to be a pathologist when she's older."

"But the other children..." Sherlock started.

"Haven't grown up with the world's only consulting detective." John interrupted. "They're most likely just as obsessed with what their parents do. One of Mary's friends is a hairdresser and her kid is always cutting her dolls hairs or her own. It's what kids do."

"She has a very short attention span." Sherlock offered. "She won't concentrate on subjects she doesn't like. Sometimes she can barely sit still at home."

"She is _your daughter,_ Sherlock." John shot back playfully. Then, seeing that his friend didn't look any more relaxed or assured, John decided to try another tactic. He sighed, closing the laptop that lay on his lap and leaning forward. "Look, do you think that Sophia is unhappy?"

"What?"

"Do you think that she's upset that she doesn't have many friends or that she can't concentrate for too long on things she finds boring?" John continued. "Do you honestly remember seeing any signs of Sophia being upset by that? Not her teacher, not you, but her?"

"Well..." Sherlock started, rattling his brain to try and scrape out of a memory of his daughter crying about her lack of friends or growing angry with herself for not being able to read an article about hills and mountains.

"If you want to get Sophia tested for whatever disorder you think she has, then you can. It's up to you, mate. But nothing's going to change. You'll get a fancy name to explain aspects of her personality but that itself won't change her. There's nothing to change. There's nothing wrong with her. She's not broken. There's nothing to fix. She's a happy kid."

"Well, she's asleep." Mary declared, walking back into the room. "Very disappointed that there was no case that threatened the safety of our nation though." She smiled then, as an afterthought added, "Cup of tea anyone?" John and Sherlock mumbled a yes and Mary made her way to the kitchen. "What's going on then?" She called. "What's got you two looking so thoughtful. Don't tell me the safety of our nation actually is in danger." There was no hiding anything from Mary, Sherlock mused. She could see right through both men. She had the social awareness and skills that the detective himself lacked.

So, knowing there was no point in arguing that there was nothing going on, John relayed the conversation back to his wife, filling her in on the meeting at school and Sherlock's internet browsing. By the time he was done, Mary was coming back into the room carrying the three mugs of tea.

"Well, it's a double edged sword, really, isn't it?" She offered, spilling the tea only slightly as she handed one to Sherlock and placed the other two down on the coffee table next to John's armchair. "On one hand if you did get Sophia tested and found out she had some disorder, she'd be able to get help for it at school if she needed it but on the other hand you're then giving her a label to live with for the rest of her life." She perched at the edge of John's armchair, smiling back at Sherlock who was now even more conflicted than he was at the start of this conversation. "It's up to you Sherlock. You know that we'll support you whatever you choose but at the end of the day, your Sophia's father. You're the only person who can make this decision."

And that was it. Sherlock was left without an answer or a plan of action. He was just as confused, if not even more so, as he was when he left the school earlier that day. It was times such as these that he realised that maybe being a parent was the most confusing and difficult thing he could do. Proving a man on death row was innocent or solving a 300 year old murder were child's play in comparison to some of horrific situations being a parent brought with it. How did people do it? How did people _choose_ to do it? Some people even more than once. He made a mental note to inquire with his parents what on Earth was going on in their minds when they decided to have three kids.

/

With the next day came a call from Lestrade. A unidentified body had been pulled from the Thames. Could Sherlock get down there immediately?

Of course he could. He needed a good case to stop him from trying to diagnose his own child with some sort of mental disorder that he previously didn't know existed. His internet history was full of medical pages and parent forums. It was dulling his mind. He practically leapt at the opportunity to leave the flat and poke a dead body.

It being a weekend and such short notice though, Sophia had to tag along. Not that she minded. Not at all. She was giddy with excitement as she pulled on her coat and scooped up her 'on-a-case-backpack'. The backpack had been Molly's life saving idea. It was packed full of stuff to keep Sophia quiet and entertained during a case or a visit to the morgue. Toys, colouring books, pencils, notepads and snacks. Sometimes, if there was time, Sherlock would shove in her homework. On Sophia's insistence, it also contained her deerstalker and magnifying glass.

Although, on that particular day Sophia barely had chance to open her on-a-case bag before Sherlock had returned. The body, no matter how suspicious it looked, was easily deduced to be the body of someone who had fallen into the Thames whilst intoxicated. The body, a middle aged man who was having an affair on his wife, would be picked up and taken to a lab where toxicology reports would be done and the results would prove Sherlock right.

So, with nothing else to do and no real rush to get back to Baker Street, Sherlock allowed his daughter to persuade him to get them both an ice cream before they went home. Sherlock didn't mention to his daughter that maybe it wasn't the right weather to be buying ice cream or even that it was still early and she hadn't even had her breakfast yet. It would be a reward, he said as they made their way to a 24 hour newsagents that sold ice lollies, for Sophia getting up and dressed so early without complaining.

"Was it big and bloated then?" Sophia asked in her seemingly endless barrage of questions about the body. "Like, big enough to explode." They had sat perched on the mental fence that stood stopping the public from falling into the Thames. From there they could look down to the shore below and see Lestrade, a few police officers and some other official looking people scurrying around the white tent that covered the dead body from their view. "Was he all wrinkled like your fingers get when you've been in the bath for too long?"

"Sophia." Sherlock started, having not at all listened to her for the past few minutes. His mind had been elsewhere. He looked down at her. She didn't look tired despite it being so early in the morning. The excitement had woken her up and burnt at her cheeks until they turned pink underneath her spattering of freckles. "Are you happy?" It flew out of his mouth unexpectedly, even to himself. Sophia merely blinked in shock.

"Yeah, of course." She shrugged. "You just got me ice cream. Ice cream makes everyone happy."

"No. I mean in general." Sherlock sighed. Sophia took a lick of her ice cream and looked up at him with questioning eyes. "Overall. In life. Are you happy?" There was a pause as she thought. He could see her mind working behind her eyes.

Finally, she nodded.

"Yeah." She concluded. "I am now. I don't think I was when I live with mummy but now I'm with you I'm happy." Sherlock nodded. If she remembered anything about being kidnapped by Moriarty or her mother's death at the mad man's hands, she didn't mention it. Sherlock had figured out a while ago that she may have blocked that all out of her mind. He wasn't about to push her on it, though. The more less she remembered about that time, the better.

"What about at school?" Sherlock prompted. "Are you happy at school? Do you have enough friends to play with? Can you concentrate on work?"

"I don't know how many friends in the right number of friends to have." Sophia shrugged, then, with a mischievous smile added, "I have more friends than you do, anyway."

"It's not a competition." Sherlock huffed, although he was glad that she didn't seem to have any worry about socialising.

"Sometimes I can't concentrate on things that are boring." Sophia continued. "You know, like geography and maths. I get told off by my teacher sometimes because I get bored but I don't get bored when I do stuff that I like. I don't get bored of drawing or reading or writing or history. Sometimes when I'm doing stuff like that I forget about everything else." There was a pause. A moment of silence but Sherlock knew there was more she wanted to say. Something that hung at the end of her tongue. "I know what my teacher spoke to you about yesterday." She finally said.

"Oh yes?" Sherlock asked.

"Yeah." Sophia replied. "She was talking about it to another teacher. She thinks I can't hear her." She looked up at her father. Any playful smile that her been on her face was now gone. She looked worried. Scared and alone. There was something in her face that reminded the detective of someone. Someone he couldn't quite put his finger on. Someone that made his heart feel as if it had stopped. "She told you I'm weird, didn't she? That I'm not well in the head because I can't make friends properly and I like strange things. She wants you to take me to the doctors so they can find out what's wrong with me, doesn't she?"

"Something along those lines, yes." Sherlock told her. There was a silence. A moment of thought on Sophia's half. She looked out across the Thames. The early morning sky was starting to lose it's burning orange hue. That magic time of the morning when being out and about was wonderous was starting to end now. The morning traffic was starting grow. Tourists who wanted to pack everything into as little time as possible had started to appear. People on their way to work dragged themselves down the streets with take-away coffee cups in hand.

"Do you think she's right?" Sophia asked. "Is there something wrong with me?" She looked up at her father once more, knowing he wouldn't lie to save her feelings from being hurt. His eyes were sparkling as he looked back down at her. He had clever eyes. She had long ago decided they were the cleverest eyes she had ever seen in her life. She wanted eyes like his. She wanted her eyes to sparkle even on the earliest mornings.

"There's nothing wrong with you." He said, slowly and purposely. He took a deep breath and looked back out at the Thames. Below them, forensic experts worked on piling the body onto a stretcher. "You are..." He struggled to find the word. Frowning. Sentiment had never been his strong point. "You are a wonderful child." Sophia smiled to herself, feeling a warm glow in her chest. She rested her chin against the metal bar that ran across the fence they were sitting on, staring out across the city. No one in the entirety of London, she decided, felt as loved and safe as she did. "And some people in life won't see that but as long as you're happy, then it doesn't matter."

There was another moment of quite. The birds in the sky squaked and somewhere far off a car horn blasted. Sherlock felt Sophia lean against his, her head resting against his arm. The hand that wasn't holding her ice lolly reached over to wrap around his.

If she didn't want to be tested, Sherlock decided, then he wasn't going to push her. If it came to it when she was older then it would be her choice. Until then their only problem seemed the be the teacher. Of course, Sherlock could get in touch with his older brother. A few threats of government action would surely convince the woman to leave Sophia alone.

Although, the idea of running to his brother for help wasn't all too appealing to the detective. No. Sherlock could handle this himself. He'd wait to see what would happen, if the teacher would press the subject any further or forget about it and move onto harassing another parent. If not... well he was sure he could find some dirt on her. That or subtly threaten her with the destruction of the the country if she didn't stop annoying them. That had seemed to work on a smaller scale the day before and Sophia did enjoy the idea.

Sherlock smirked to himself at the idea. Then, after seeing the ambulance that was taking the corpse to the mortuary begin to drive away, he looked down at her. It was time they set off home. Time for breakfast and their morning cup of tea. All provided by Mrs Hudson.

But then it hit him.

A punch in the stomach or ice in his veins.

He realised who Sophia had reminded him of. Scared of herself and desperately alone if only for the briefest of moments. It had brought him back to the dark ruins of his family home. The adrenaline in his veins and the cold air biting at his skin.

 _Open your eyes. I'm here._

That's it. That's who it was. The flash across his daughter's face of a woman she had never even met.

 _You're not lost anymore_

Eurus Holmes.

/

 _ **A/N:** I hope you all liked that chapter! Sorry about it being so late! I figured the last chapter I posted didn't work out so well (little reviews and I honestly just didn't really like it) so I decided to scrap that one and write a new one! As you can imagine, life gets in the way of doing anything that I enjoy! _

_ANYWAY,_

 _please, please, please review!_

 _Tell me what you'd like the next chapter to be about! It has the begin with 'E and as you can probably tell, I already have a vague idea (literally the last two words of this chapter) and I'd love to hear what you'd like to see,_

 _Thank you!_

 _Review!_


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